Namiko Yamamoto for ES240 Problem6

I am a first year PhD student in Aeronautics and Astronautics department at MIT. I also have obtained B.S. and M.S. from the same department. I have taken one Solid Mechanics (graduate level) course at MIT, but since it did not cover waves/vibration or nonlinear plate theory, I look forward to these new topics later in the course very much. My most research work has been done at Technology Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Composites at MIT. My M.S. thesis topic was on micro solid oxide fuel cell. The goal was to design and fabricate thin film tri-layer fuel cell structure that is thermomechanically stable at high operation temperature. We started with mechanical testing to acquire properties, and designed membranes with von Karman plate theory. My PhD topic is nano-engineered composites with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Solid mechanics is very directly related to these structural tasks including stiffness testing. Generally, having better sense of mechanics behind and having many analysis tools will be greatly helpful. So far I have been having much fun coming to Harvard, taking a little break from MIT (I have been there more than enough, although I still love it there). I hope to learn as much as possible from this course.